About us

Who is Desmond Equipment?

A company driven with ambition to succeed and the will to provide the ever changing market with the most suitable product, manufactured locally, using local resources. The company is jointly owned by Desmond and Louise Gutzeit, husband and wife team, with a vision for success.

The company originally formed in 1973 as Desmond Transport. It operated in the transport business and grew steadily year by year venturing into the earthmoving, construction and plant hire business, as well as developing a quarry and brick manufacturing business. Again this was a result of focused understanding of local market demand and meticulous adoption of sound business principles and initiatives.

An effective operating structure enabled and justified the purchase of second hand earthmoving equipment and equip a workshop to re-furbish this equipment for re-sale In a joint venture with our BEE partners, Kwe-Africa Equipment, we take our proudlyAfrican product to market.

This progressive development allowed for the establishment of our manufacturing plant, creating effective local suppliers, employing and training staff. In 1995 with the experience gained from refurbishment the decision was made to manufacture our own equipment in close consultation with customer demands. Production began with a front end loader in 1996 and the reaction resulted in three loaders being manufactured and sold in the first year, five units were sold in 1997.

In 1998 we saw great growth with the sales of front end loaders achieving 3% of the market. Our newly developed Dezzi haulage tractor with took 30% of the sales in the first year of manufacture.

As we are a local manufacturer, with most of our manufacturing being done in house, it allows us to have this facility for custom built equipment. A factory area of approximately 11000m³ neatly laid out with office space, drawings department, stores, engineering department (with CNC machining centres), fabrication shop with profile cutters, bending, welding Co2 machines division for cab and body manufacturing, assembly shop, sand blasting and paintshop, as well as test track for testing machines. We have skilled key people in position to control these various departments.

In 1998 we saw great growth with the sales of front end loaders achieving 3% of the market. Our newly developed Dezzi haulage tractor with took 30% of the sales in the first year of manufacture.